Hellooooo France!!!

In an ideal world, we would've been up by 5am this morning - showering, slowly getting packed up, checking out of the hotel with breakfast in our bellies, and heading off to catch a 7am train to the French border. 

But we don't live in an ideal world.

At 6:30am this morning, instead of making our way to the train station, we were still in bed. I had missed the alarm. So, as soon as I realized my mistake, I rolled over, smacked Tibby and said, "it's 6:30, we need to get up, NOW!" To which Tibby replied, "WHAT?! ....we're not gonna make it" to which I replied, "We're damn well gonna try!!!" 

And THAT was THAT!

So, as we were literally throwing clothes onto our bodies, shoving everything within reach into our bags, hopping across the beds and generally running around like chickens with our heads cut off, I soon realized that we needed a taxi if we were going to make it.

I thus calmly sat down and phoned the front desk. Tibby says I must have gotten my acting skills on because I sounded eerily polite and calm - while she was madly dashing to and from the bathroom trying to pack the rest of our possessions within the 4 minutes we had until we had to be out the door - and I asked for a taxi to be sent. 

Then, without brushing teeth or hair, still partially in jammies, and with bags crammed full, we dashed downstairs to catch the taxi. Unfortunately the guy at the front desk hadn't quite understood our need for speed and thus asked again if we actually needed that taxi. We both focused on not screaming and again I politely said that yes, we do. 

While we waited, we paid for the room and the poor guy continued to look a bit worried for us, continually asking if we wanted breakfast before we left. So, after hastily grabbing some croissants (and a few extra that I shoved into my bag for the road) and trying not to look at our watches for fear of outright panic, the taxi finally showed up and we literally threw ourselves into the backseat telling the driver to PLEASE HURRY!!!!

Luckily the cabbie was a cute little older guy who chatted the whole ride about how his daughter had won a trip to Hawaii for 5 days and he cheerily asked us all about our trip and where we were from. We felt a little calmer as he made us chuckle with his morning enthusiasm and he was certainly quick on the roads, getting us to the station with literally 5 minutes to get on the train - we hoped it was enough time!! We did not want to repeat Pompeii!!

And so, did we make it??

Well, it took a few body slams into unsuspecting strangers and a few crushed toes, but ladies and gentlemen, we MADE IT!!!! 

We got on that train and not more than a minute later, the door closed and we were off!!

Unfortunately, we were a bit confused about how to read our ticket and for a few moments we thought we had not booked the correct seats. But eventually a lady sitting closeby told us we were in the entirely wrong car and so thanking her, we moved up the train to our rightful seats. A few vagabonds had stolen our places, but when we waved our tickets in their faces, they eventually moved and we sat down with huge sighs of relief and prayers of thanks that we were not still running through the station or sleeping at the hotel. 

It was an experience I would like to never repeat, but by golly it was one I will always remember!!!

((Intermission...Kyla, in her own words, is currently feeling like an older woman. Complaining of aches all over and asking for water, she is now resting and I will continue!))

So yes, after a less than desirable jump start to the day, we settled in on the 4 hour train ride from Milan to the French/Italian border town of Ventimiglia. 

Upon arrival, it was a bit confusing to figure out the trains, but Kyla can at least get by with French, so we are better off than we were in Italy! So we figured out when our train to Nice, France would be; but we wanted to spend a little time in this coastal town. The train station didn't have luggage storage, so we carried all of our belongings all over the place. We are certainly the definition of "hot mess"!

After a few different directions and a bit of aimless wandering, we found the place that is supposed to be the tourist information center. Well, surprise surprise, it's only closed one day a week and that is Mondays. Wanna guess what today is? Monday. 

So, slightly disappointed by that, we just decided we'd walk over to a nearby bridge, take some photos, find food, and get back on the train and head towards Nice. Ventimiglia is a cute little coastal Italian town that reminds us a bit of Cinque Terre, only larger. The bridge we were on was over this little river that flowed out into the Mediterranean Sea. Now, I cannot be totally sure, but I believe there were salmon in that stream laying their eggs! Because if I remember correctly salmon swim upstream into freshwater to lay their eggs...anyone for sure on that?

Anyways, if you put your back to the sea, we think you could just begin to see the tops of the Alps!! They looked truly amazing from that bridge!

...the alps??!!

We began to make our way back towards the train station and stopped at a pizzeria to grab a bite to eat. I'll be honest, it wasn't the best pizza we've had, but hungry travelers will eat just about anything that's edible. So after snarfing those down, we spotted a little pastry stand where we just HAD to pick up a few little canoli's to finish off our pizza. Before returning to the station, we wandered into a little shop that was kind of like a specialty grocery store. Inside we found the most massive tubs of Nutella I have EVER seen in my life. Like seriously, it was astounding!!!!! SO MUCH NUTELLA!!!!

Seriously, check those bad boys out!!

After gawking at the Nutella, we headed over to the station to catch our train into France! It was a fairly short trip, less than an hour! For the first part, there was another passenger on the train that had this bitty little fluff ball of a puppy with her, and it was all we could do to stay in our seats and not go snatch him up to cuddle! He was so fluffy we could die! (Despicable Me, anyone?!)

....just look at that FACE!!!!!

"Crossing the border" was the easiest thing of my life. We never went through any sort of customs or border check or anything like that. I can't help but wonder if Europe just operates under the assumption that if one country accepts you, then they all will. 

Upon arrival in Nice, we snagged a map from the tourist info center and, after some looking, we managed to find where our hostel is and we made our way over there. We got all checked in, and because we were a little tired, we decided to just crash for a few hours. I spent a few hours uploading TONS of photos to Facebook and Kyla napped. 

Feeling refreshed, we ventured out into the streets of busy and bustling Nice to find some dinner. And my oh my, we certainly experienced some culture shock coming from Italy and jumping right into this busy city life. It was a TON of rapid sensory overload. Not only are we trying to switch our brains over to a new language, but we are in hotel/bar/restaurant central and so many people were going here and darting there; some yelling French, some not. After the last few days of being in quieter towns, we weren't totally prepared for all of the people and noise and bustle. But we eventually wandered around and truth be told, we ended up at KFC for dinner. For some reason, chicken tenders sounded too good to pass up. I know I know, we're in France so in some world that means we should eat French food. But sometimes, your body just says "feed me chicken!". So we did. We ordered a bucket of 20 tenders...and yes, we finished the whole thing.

Still feeling quite mellow, we came back to our hostel and showered and are now settling in for a long night's sleep. 

Tomorrow's plan is a simple one...it's a beach day!! For the whole day!! Ah, twill be so marvelous!